Ukrainian Defensive War against the Russian Invasion - Mark IV: The Partitioning of Discussion

Airforce General belittles the use of ground forces, more bomb shells like this to be found only on CBS news!
Is he even an airforce General? But even so, I think most drones in Ukraine are operated by the ground forces, and that they have largely rendered tanks obsolete, imo.
 
So why do we have tanks, infantry and artillery, when airplanes were invented over 100 years ago?
I dont know? These are not the same things?

Both sides seems to have been very good at keeping enemy aircraft behind the line of contact But aircraft still see some use. And if course artillery is still very important.
 
Too often, we lose sight of the specific reasons drones became popular in the Ukrainian theater, and assume that all of the conditions in Ukraine will be present in all future conflicts.

That's a very shortsighted mistake. Letting memes become policy will cost lives.
 
Drones, obviously. For the price of one tank you can comfortably field 100.000 fpv drones.

David Petreus said recently, that western nations needs to scrap their armoured batallions
A single artillery shell that costs a similar amount can take out an entire trench full of guys that cost tens of thousands to train feed equip and recruit each. But someone needs to be able to take and hold ground. Or in the case of armor when your guys find or make a gap in the enemy's defenses you are going to want armor to exploit it.
 
Or in the case of armor when your guys find or make a gap in the enemy's defenses you are going to want armor to exploit it.
Tanks just can't do it. They get turned into expensive landscape features too easily. They are supposed to be potent offensive weapons, but they just dont cause any enemy casualties. We don't use cavalry anymore either.

A single artillery shell that costs a similar amount can take out an entire trench full of guys that cost tens of thousands to train feed equip and recruit each.
Artillery is still used a lot by both sides and it has an impact. But I think much less so than two years ago. I know that the new German shell factory has been building up inventory, which would never have happened earlier in the war.
 
Tanks just can't do it. They get turned into expensive landscape features too easily. They are supposed to be potent offensive weapons, but they just dont cause any enemy casualties. We don't use cavalry anymore either.
This is just not true it's common for tanks to be able to sustain 4 or 5 FPV impacts. There is a reason both sides are still using them. Tanks are a magnet for enemy fire but a tank or an IFV when it gets to enemy positions the infantry supported by armor are going to win almost every time. Nothing else will allow a group of 3-5 people to consistently engage targets at long range with devastating heavy fire while being able to tank multiple hits from heavy weapons. You are thinking purely in terms of cost but you also have to think in terms of manpower. I know it's a bit of a meme term but it is quite literally a force multiplier.
Artillery is still used a lot by both sides and it has an impact. But I think much less so than two years ago. I know that the new German shell factory has been building up inventory, which would never have happened earlier in the war.
The point isn't that drones or artillery are useless the point is that just because something is cheap and a good way to destroy an asset doesn't mean that the asset is no longer useful.
 
Nothing else will allow a group of 3-5 people to consistently engage targets at long range with devastating heavy fire while being able to tank multiple hits from heavy weapons.

On that "engage targets at long range" Ukrainians had vindicated the English on keeping a rifle barrel. As tanks, tank destroyers, and assault guns also had the role of short range indirect fire support before the adopting smoothbore barrels.
 
This is just not true it's common for tanks to be able to sustain 4 or 5 FPV impacts
I think the vulnerability of tanks (and light vehicles) to FPVs is sort of temporary too - there have to be boffins working on automated anti-drone gun systems that just blast anything close by out of the sky based on mm-wave radar or whatever.
 
New Perun video covering the Hungarian election, Orbán's friendship with Putin and what this means for Ukraine and the future.
Was a good summary.

What might have quite interesting (and grave) consequences for Hungary's defense capability and something I see very few non-Hungarian analysts touch on is the post-2024/25 complete sell off of Hungary's defense industry. The guy who made the video surprisingly didn't talk about this either, would have made for an interesting topic from someone whose expertise is milsperging (mine is not)

Mészáros, Orbán's childhood friend who went in just a few years from destitute gas fitter to giga billionaire and richest person in Hungary, probably the biggest living icon of sin of Hungarian crony corruption, now essentially owns a LARGE (some estimate it to be as high as 70%) share of Hungary's defense industry.

in June 2025 Orban announced that he's going to privatize the "commercially viable" (lol) part of the state defense sector. There was a state owned holding called "N7 Holding" owning the meaningful portion of the Hungarian defense industry, which spun off into N7 Defence Zrt. (Zrt. stands for "Ltd" in English in company names), then N7 Defence Zrt. sold a 75%+1 vote majority to 4iG SDT (Space and Defense Technologies), a subsidiary of 4iG. This (the initial acquisitions package) at the time was a roughly 250 million Euro deal- later this ballooned up a few hundred millies through capital injections. The state did keep ownership of the actual land the factories are on and leases it to the new owner.

Hungary sold off from government ownership:

Aeroplex (aircraft maintenance/repair)
Arzenál (small arms)
Colt CZ Hungary
Rheinmetall Munitions Hungary (ammo)
Hirtenberger Defence Systems (ammo/mortars)
Stakes in Rheinmetall Hungary proper through VAB Kft. (Lynx IFVs)
Stakes in Rába Vehicle (tactical vehicles)
Airbus Helicopters Hungary
Gestamen Arms (small arms research/innovation)
etc. etc.

Orban's reasoning was that Hungary needs a "market based defense industry".

The reality: 4iG up to this point wasn't exactly known for it's ties to the defense industry (it didn't really have much of that). 4iG was a telecom/IT conglomerate before its foray into owning Hungary's entire defense industry. 4iG is literally the biggest benefactor of Hungarian state contracts, loans, acquisitions, etc to date, it's like the nr1 vampire sucking the entire nation's neck dry. Its ownership can be directly tied to Hungary's favorite illiterate gas fitter and nr1 oligarch/Orban's childhood friend/Orban's living moneybag Mészáros Lőrinc.

The even harsher reality: The sale happened as a result of hundreds of millions of euros being round-tripped into 4iG through Orbán oligarch linked private equity funds - basically taxpayer money was funneled into the pockets of these oligarchs in order for them to be able to amass enough capital to buy state property which then disappears in the pockets of Orban's childhood friend. Foreign partners like Czech CSG were already brought in, 4iG issued bonds, it's tough to find a way home from here. Related article from Direkt36: "Billions in state funds secretly channeled to Viktor Orbán’s favourite company before defense acquisitions"

This is basically the crown jewel of Orban's almost 2 decade long complete capture of the Hungarian state, it basically encapsulates every sin the system had.

-Oligarch enrichment
-Sellout of national interests (in this case national security)
-Complete undermining of NATO and EU trust
-Doing all of this using EU Defense money (all while rallying against the "Brussels war economy)
-irreparable long-term damage, unnecessary political risk and inefficiency in a sector vital to national interests

I honestly have no idea what all this means later down the line, especially after the April 12 bloodbath. I don't think anyone does, and it's quite scary- it's probably the one thing I'm most curious about how the new leadership will deal with, it's not going to be easy.

I keep seeing (eg. on xitter) people downplay the Orban regime's authoritarianism and complete and utter state capture/soft dictatorship because "they peacefully gave power away". No fucking shit, they had no choice- Orban doesn't have the loyalty of the low-level police enforcement (he does have the complete loyalty of the Prosecution and the courts though)/the military and 2/3 of the country voted him out despite him cheating in every inconceivable way. Especially in hindsight seeing how bloodthirsty people who voted him out still are, even after victory, if he did anything that isn't just stepping down there would have been rivers of blood and politicians hanging from lampposts, I'm fairly sure.

Anyone unironically arguing that Hungary was a paragon of democracy under Orban because he conceded the loss after an electoral assrape is fucking retarded.

Holy fucking shit, even past the grave Orbán can't resist cockblocking Ukraine. He has announced today that until the very second Magyar Péter takes office (which is May 9)/until the oil starts flowing again he will keep blocking the 90 bil loan to Ukraine. It's crazy how Orban is shamelessly trying to gain political capital from the olive branch Ukraine extended to the newly elected Hungarian government by making demands from a position of no power.
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We have received a message from Ukraine, relayed through Brussels, indicating that they are ready to resume oil shipments via the Druzhba pipeline as early as Monday, provided that Hungary subsequently lifts its block on the 90-billion-euro EU credit line.

Hungary’s position has not changed: if there is oil, there is money. As soon as oil shipments resume, we will no longer stand in the way of the credit line’s approval. The disbursement of the loan does not impose any financial burden or liability on Hungary.
He even reiterated that he's being a nigger for sport and that the loan does not actually burden Hungary lmao
 
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On that "engage targets at long range" Ukrainians had vindicated the English on keeping a rifle barrel. As tanks, tank destroyers, and assault guns also had the role of short range indirect fire support before the adopting smoothbore barrels.
?

This is doctrinal and has nothing to do with smoothbore vs. rifled bore. The US adopted a rather lethal beehive round for the M256 that it used to terrifying effect in Iraq. That it came out of a smoothbore has no bearing on it.

Speaking of bearings, HEAT is an effective support munition, as it doesn't just do the shaped charge thing, it also goes "kaboom" and makes concentrations of enemies very unhappy. But the rifled bore tank gun can't fire them unless it uses a ring race bearing collar on their rounds: a spinning HEAT round can't do the job against enemy armor as well, which is one of the purposes of HEAT. A smoothbore HEAT round doesn't need such adaptation.

Smoothbore vs. rifled will be debated for a good while and they both have their benefits and drawbacks. IMO smoothbore is the way forward. Fortunately I'll never have to find out.
 
Podlet-1K radar & two landing ships — project 775 Yamal & project 1171 Nikolai Filchenkov. Sevastopol, got ACK'd:

S-350 Vityaz air defence complex gets ACK'd with OWA drones; Tor decoy also hit:

T-55-based turtle tanks get ACK'd by FPV drones and HIMARS:

Tuapse refinery continues to burn nicely days after the initial ACK:

vk0tnp0yoawg1.jpeg
 
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Short news from Hungary that might be relevant to the thread.

About 30 seconds ago Magyar had a press conference. He restructured all the Ministries, mostly carving them up into reasonable portions. Previously the Hungarian government had 'top-level ministries', which meant that eg.: the Interior Minister (during the Orbán regime this was the elderly Russian-Ukrainian mob-linked ex-corrupt police chief, Pintér Sándor) was responsible for Education, Health, Social causes, the police, etc. Now its role will be more conventional, its most principal role being overseeing law enforcement as there will be a separate Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, etc. Most of the picks are absolute bangers- very few conventional, 'old guard' politicians, all of them experts and universally well respected in their field like Hegedűs Zsolt, a rockstar Orthopedic Surgeon for Minister of Health and Kapitány István, ex-Shell Vice-President for Minister of Economy and Energy.

Magyar also revealed most of the Minister appointments, I think there is two that might be interesting to the thread.

One's General Ruszin-Szendi Romulusz for Minister of Defense
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Orbán completely mogged to oblivion.

I've already made a post about him. TLDR.: he was the Hungarian Chief of the General Staff of the Hungarian Defense Forces. He fell victim to Orban's purge of senior officers where the fat gypsy replaced all the experienced senior personnel with young janissaries who are politically loyal to the regime. The casus belli on firing him was him being just a bit too friendly to Ukraine for Orban's liking and ending NATO strategic meetings with "Slava Ukraini".
All I'm going to say is that there's a 99.9% chance Ruszin-Szendi Romulusz is going to be the next Minister of Defense for Hungary. He used to be the Chief of the Hungarian Defense Forces, he fell out of favor with Orban and fell victim to the Army purge due to ending NATO briefings with "Slava Ukraini". He is universally loved by the armed forces, been a career officer for more than 30 years.

He's been a TISZA loyalist from the early days and now he's an MP.

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The other interesting (but also not unexpected, I would have said it's going to be her with a 99.9% certainty even months ago) is Orbán Anita, not blood related to Orbán Viktor. She's going to be FM.

She's an ex high level diplomat from the 2000s-early 2010s Orban regime. She used to be linked to FIDESZ 2 decades ago, she now represents the spirit of the now long-defunct transatlantic branch of FIDESZ which they immediately axed during their 2010 rise to power in order to do the russophile sovereignist grift. She's pro-NATO, pro-US and pro-EU - overall pro-West, so you won't see her clowning around with the Turkic council or rimming Russia like Orban (Viktor) and Szijjarto did.

She opposes fast track EU accession for Ukraine, but supports eventual NATO membership to counter Russian influence and she has also repeatedly emphasized that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim.
 
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